A Spring of Joy

This morning dawned drizzly and dreary and seemed to match my mood. Bri and I had to be over the mountain at the hospital by 8:00 and y’all know what a morning person he is, so you can imagine how thrilled he was when the alarm woke us this morning. I have been suffering from a cold and spent the night coughing rather than sleeping, so I curled up in our heated seats and listened to the droning of NPR for an hour while we drove through fog so thick you could only see 2 feet in front of you. Although I am prone to exaggeration, that is not one. I actually heard them say it on the radio.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about where I am with treatment. What’s happening in my life? How am I feeling? So consider this my attempt to answer your questions… my deep-dark secrets will be revealed, all the things you ever wanted to know about me, those frequently asked question about who I am. My dorky life in middle and high school. My 80’s hair. The WAHM club. Well, no, not really. But if you have a question (about my health update, because I refuse to touch the 80’s) that I don’t answer, feel free to leave a comment and ask me.

I had an “Oh my stars! I had cancer!” moment today, and there is a heaviness that lingers. It’s hard to even explain all the things that flit through my mind during these times. The memories of the fears wash over me, the joy of God’s strength in this trial, the overwhelming encouragement of our friends and family, the pain of change, the peace of trust.

I’m afraid there was a terrible accident the other day at the hospital. While Angie was receiving her daily dose of radiation something unexpected happened…

I know, I know. An update on how radiation is going is long overdue. I think the dullness of the routine has kept me from even knowing what to write. There’s not a whole lot to share about going to the cancer center every day, lying on a table and letting them burn me from the inside out. I know all the staff by name, and we joke about weird things like Bob Ross, the afro-headed artist on PBS, with his “happy little green and happy little trees.” The techs all love my fun socks that I wear, and I have many of you to thank for that. I received so many pairs of socks as gifts, and I love them all!

Yesterday was long and hard, physically and emotionally. I am weary today, but I am enjoying an afternoon snuggled in my delicious new RED bed linens. How I love red!

I wanted to give y’all an update on my status and progress. I went in yesterday morning for my radiation appointment. It consisted of 2 hours in freezing cold rooms undergoing x-rays, CT-scans, and markings for my radiation treatments. The markings process is tedious, because I couldn’t move for the entire length of time they were measuring and drawing all over me. Try not moving when the room temperature is 0 degrees and you’re biting your lips so hard they’re bleeding because you’re trying not to shiver or let your teeth chatter. Okay, so I exaggerate. A bit.

Honestly, I’m not a big Valentine’s Day person. It’s a nice enough day for the masses who are convinced by the card companies and the chocolate-heart manufacturers and the florists who raise their prices exorbitantly. Trust me, I’m an incurable romantic at heart, but I’d much rather Brian surprise me with a dozen roses on a day when it’s not expected of him. Give me dinner out on a night when I don’t have to wait 2 hours for a table. And also trust me when I say that especially after the last 6 months, I don’t need Valentine’s Day to show me how much Brian loves me.

So I’ve been getting all kinds of questions about when I’ll be done with chemo and treatment and what the future looks like, and I decided I should probably write an entry with an update for all of you. I hate writing these because I don’t want to bore you to death, so that being said, don your sleeping caps, grap a cup of nighttime tea, big long stretch, nice yawn, and here we go…

It took me a while to get the place where I didn’t feel guilty saying how unfair I feel my life is. My world and my faith have been shaken a lot—not just recently. I close my eyes and remember a Thursday night in October 10 years ago when I picked up the phone to hear the voice of our friend and doctor, Greg. It was almost word for word what I’ve just recently heard, “There’s no easy way to say this, but there was cancer in your tumor.”

Drum roll, please… six down, two to go (well, only two more chemo treatments. I still have a year of IV-herceptin, radiation, drug therapies, etc. But the most toxic portion will soon be out of the way.) Yesterday was a mixture of emotions when I saw my oncologist. On the bright side, my blood counts look great, he determined course of treatment to replace the Taxol, I had my port so there was no IV, and I only have two chemo treatments left even with all the setbacks. On the not so bright side, not knowing what actually caused my recent hospitalization, there are no guarantees that this treatment won’t send me to the hospital also, the new drug is less severe overall but much more prone to nausea, and the port access did not go so well. It was an exhausting, emotional day, and now it is an exhausting, sleepless night.